Unlike eight traveling companions, a Cuban family that attempted -- for a second time -- to cross the Florida Straits in a floating vehicle will be taken to Guantánamo Bay for processing.

  BY TERE FIGUERAS

  A Cuban family found motoring in the Florida Straits with eight others tucked inside a watertight Buick car-boat has been given a reprieve: The couple and their 4-year-old son will be sent to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for further processing.

  As the images of the intercepted 1959 Buick sedan -- powered by its original V-8 engine and tucked inside the prow of a boat -- garnered international headlines, Luis Grass Rodríguez and his family were kept on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, their fate in limbo.

  The federal government's decision to take the Grass family to Guantánamo is a rare one -- few Cuban migrants picked up at sea are taken there -- and comes after a week of mounting criticism against the Bush administration's Cuba policies in general and the fate of the car-boaters in particular.

  Cuban rafters who display a ''credible fear'' of persecution are sent to Guantánamo for further processing and possible resettlement to a third-party country. The Grass family's escape aboard the Buick came seven months after a similar attempt aboard a 1951 Chevy pickup rigged with makeshift pontoons and a propeller made from scrap metal.

  That escape, too, ended when the vehicle was spotted at sea.

  EIGHT SENT BACK

  The other eight Cubans aboard the Buick, four of them children, were returned to the island Tuesday.

  Among them: Marcial Basanta López, wife Mirlena and their two young children, who were greeted in Havana late Wednesday by the cheers of nearly 200 neighbors and the hugs of jubilant relatives, reported The Associated Press.

  ''They are here and they are all fine,'' said Deisy López, Basanta's mother.

  Basanta had also been aboard the '51 Chevy. The Chevy, just like the Buick, was sunk by the Coast Guard.

  Earlier in the day, Cuban police had raided Basanta's home and searched the neighborhood looking for his red 1952 Ford truck. Officers found it, but did not confiscate it, the AP reported.

  ''That doesn't mean anything,'' said Basanta's cousin Kiriat López, who lives in South Florida.

  ``Castro can do whatever he wants to them and to the truck. Who knows what's going to happen now?''

  Grass' Miami relatives were relieved that the family would be spared similar scrutiny. His mother-in-law, Pilar Rodriguez, wept when she heard that her daughter would not be sent back.

  ''She was really happy and crying,'' said attorney William Sánchez, who received a fax from the U.S. attorney's office forwarding the Department of Homeland Security's decision to take the Grass family to the naval base.

  During interviews aboard the Coast Guard vessel, the Grasses were able to show ''credible fear of persecution'' if they were returned to the island, hence the decision to send them to Guantánamo, lawyers for the Democracy Movement exile group said.

  But Sánchez, as well as other exile leaders, were cautious in their praise.

  ''Obviously, we would have wanted them to come [to Miami]. And we would have loved if all 11 were taken to Guantánamo,'' he said. ``We want to appeal to the president to review this repatriation process.''

  CRITICIZES BUSH

  Joe Garcia, executive director of the influential Cuban American National Foundation, had harsher words for President Bush.

  ''Although it's good that this family is not being sent back to Cuba, it shouldn't swell the heart of anyone in America or reinforce the conviction the Cuban-American community has shown for this president,'' said Garcia, adding that Cubans taken to Guantánamo often ''languish for years in immigration purgatory'' before being resettled.

  ''The one good thing to have come from this tragic epic is that people will realize the great importance of their vote, and exercise it prudently,'' Garcia said.

  The Bush administration has come under heated criticism in recent months, most notably after it returned 12 Cuban boat-hijacking suspects to the island under an agreement with Fidel Castro's government that they would be spared the death penalty.

  The move prompted several leading Cuban-American state legislators to draft a letter suggesting the president risked losing political support in a crucial election year.

  Amid publicity over the Buick, Treasury Secretary John Snow announced a crackdown on businesses accused of aiding travel to Cuba. Critics labeled Snow's visit to Miami on Monday a well-timed distraction.

  This week, a White House spokesman defended the president's policies on Cuba, stating that political concern was not a factor in the car-boat saga.

  As political pressure mounted in the eight days since the Buick was interdicted 25 miles off Marathon, so did the legal wrangling by the Democracy Movement.

  Sánchez and his colleagues asked U.S. District Court Judge Federico A. Moreno to not only prevent the repatriation of the Buick passengers, but redefine the ''wet foot, dry foot'' immigration policy that allows Cubans who arrive on U.S. soil to stay, while those caught at sea are generally returned.

  Moreno, in his Wednesday ruling, said both requests were out of his jurisdiction -- but noted his esteem for the Cubans now dubbed ``the autonauts.''

  ''A federal judge does not have the authority to admit aliens,'' he wrote. ``Even imaginative, hardworking, brave individuals as these plaintiffs appear to be.''